Salvation and Revolution: A Twentieth Century Odyssey of the Chinese Protestant Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 2025.

Salvation and Revolution explores how Chinese Protestant intellectuals navigated their faith amid the upheavals of 20th-century China. Focusing on figures like Zhao Zichen, Wu Yaozong, and Cai Yongchun, the book traces their attempts to align Christianity with the nation’s pursuit of moral renewal and political transformation. Early visions of a liberal Christian nationalism gave way to diverging paths as war, revolution, and Communist rule reshaped the landscape. While Wu embraced socialism and the CCP’s vision of national salvation, Zhao and Cai upheld more transcendent and spiritually grounded theologies. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book examines how these thinkers struggled to sustain religious life under rising state control and during the traumas of the Cultural Revolution. Despite theological rifts and personal trials, they remained committed to Christianity’s future in China.

Discover more about my book on the Chinese Theology Books Podcast, hosted by Dr. Chloë Starr at Yale Divinity School and available also on Spotify and SoundCloud.

“Nationalism: The Great Convergence.” In Visions of Salvation: Chinese Christian Posters in an Age of Revolution, edited by Daryl Ireland, 53–73. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2023.

While countering the accusations of Christians as enemies of the nation and lackeys of the imperialists, these Chinese Christian posters reveal an intrinsic and unwavering connection between religious salvation, moral choice, social ethics, and national salvation. This chapter will showcase a selection of posters, exemplifying their diverse and dynamic participation in the nationalist discourse of their time. Despite the wide theological spectrum encompassed by different Christian publishing agencies and their varying emphases and symbols, these posters converged on the point of patriotism. While the hope for a Christian republic waned by the 1920s, the dream of Chinese Christians for national salvation would be a vision that dies hard.

“The Turn of an Apologist: Zhang Yijing on the Foreign Association of Christianity in China.” In Modern Chinese Theologies, Vol. 1: Heritage and Prospect, edited by Chloë Starr, 31–46. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023.

Zhang Yijing (張亦鏡, 1871–1931), a prominent Christian apologist in early twentieth-century China, experienced a significant transformation in his thinking after the May Thirtieth Incident. This chapter examines this dramatic shift in his perspective. Throughout the initial two decades, Zhang staunchly defended Christianity against external attacks on a series of issues. However, the eruption of nationalism in 1925 proved to be a turning point for Zhang as he began critiquing the Western associations of Christianity. By 1927, he formulated an argument on Christian patriotism, emphasizing the imperative of indigenization to counter charges of imperialism and to safeguard China’s national rights. This conviction mirrored that of his liberal counterparts, whose theology Zhang had previously rejected.